gila

Wow. I can't imagine not being super excited to continue the socialisation and training you've started with the pups!

Oh they're beautiful!

Thanks pers! I had no idea charcoal could do that.

My dog has had green poo for a few days. Dark emerald green poo. The size and consistency is normal (small and firm), it's just a really odd colour! At first I thought it was caused by the green tripe he had as part of his dinner, but he hasn't had any for a few days now and the poo is still green. He's raw fed and his food doesn't have any dyes in it. The only new thing he's had to eat recently are some baked biscuits that contain activated charcoal. Would that cause the green? I'm certain it's not from a bait of any kind, because we have none, and if it was he'd be pretty sick by now surely. He's due for a cartrophen injection, so I'll ask the vet, but does anyone have any idea what could be causing this??

I was at work grooming today. We have aircon and the dogs were washed in lukewarm water and blow dried. We don't use heated dryers anyway. One client who was booked in today cancelled. Said it was too hot to get her dog groomed; she was going to the beach instead

Yeah I groom one that has a black spot on her side.

I bought my 14 year old arthritic dog a memory foam bolster bed from Costco a couple of weeks ago. It's excellent. I can lie on it without the foam squashing down until I can feel the floor like with other dog beds. Spence absolutely loves it. He had started getting restless at night and I'd find him asleep in different random places in the morning, but now he stays on his bed all night. It's big enough to fit two westies with room left over. For the laundry I'd go with HW's suggestion. That's Spencer's outside set up.

I've done it

What a bitch!

Blackburn Animal Hospital. A few of our clients have had their dogs anal glands removed there. My boss's pug cross had his removed last year there too. Not sure on price.

Yep. My dog has been having cartrophen injections for about three years and was recently prescribed Meloxicam as well. For arthritis in his hips. Th combination seems to be working better for him than the cartrophen alone.

I feed raw once a day in the late arvo/early evening. I only feed enough to keep my dog lean and he never acts like he's starving or desperate for food during the day.

Yes people have a weird way of describing what they want sometimes. Just last week I had someone with a kelpie ask for a "bath and clip". When I said kelpies don't need clipping, he got all confused and it turned out he meant a nail trim! I ALWAYS check and double check what owners want me to do with their dog!

Rottweiler

Dammit that's probably why mine doesn't fit as well as I'd hoped. I was too lazy to measure and thought Border Collie x = medium.

I just bought one for my dog. He walks nicely on lead so I don't use the front attach option, but I wouldn't use it as a no-pull harness. I think the harness would pull to the side too much. It does move to the side a tiny bit with the back attachment too. I've been fiddling around a lot with the adjustable straps to get the best fit. I found that having the neck part looser so that it sits low right at the base of the dogs neck means that the chest strap sits quite far behind the dogs front legs so you don't get chafing or restricted movement. But if the neck part is toooo loose it moves around a bit while the dog is walking. I haven't found the perfect fit yet to be honest, but it is better than his last harness. My dog has heaps of lipomas, including large ones behind his front legs, so that might be why the fit isn't perfect too. The harness is well made though and Ruffwear guarantees them against faults in materials/craftsmanship. And the colours are nice.

Yep ribs can be easily felt without pressure. He's only eating 300g of food a day. 3am?? I'm not that dedicated lol. Is that to sign up for gold?

Is anyone signing up for round two?? I think I'm going to sign up for bronze again. I got a shock when I took Spence to the vet for his cartrophen injection this morning. Popped him on the scales and he weighs 21.6kg!! That's the heaviest he's ever been. He's been about 18.5-19kg for the last few years and was about 19.6kg three months ago. He certainly hasn't put on 2kg of fat, so it must be muscle. Right? Has anyone else seen weight gain after starting regularly conditioning exercises?

If you're struggling a bit with the ratios, there are raw food calculators online. And if you have an iPhone there's a free app called Raw Dog. You just plug in your dogs weight and what percentage of body weight you want to feed (usually around 2%), and it will calculate how much meat/bone/liver/other offal you should feed a day. I find it easier to balance my dogs meals over a week, rather than do 80/10/10 daily. He can tolerate a weeks worth of offal in one go without a poo explosion, so i do one offal day a week. My boy also does better with more bone in his diet.

Yes, if its eaten fresh guts in is fine. But my brother is going hunting/camping over the weekend and won't be back until Sunday night. He'll have an esky with ice, but I don't know if that'll be enough to stop decomp if guts are left in. I think he should just man up and gut the rabbits :laugh:

Yeah I thought that, but doesn't it have to be frozen for a few weeks to kill any parasites? Everything I've read says the rabbit should be gutted before freezing because thawing it out again with guts in speeds up decomp or something

I'm getting wild rabbit for Spence! My brother is going hunting with his friends tomorrow and he's gonna bring back some rabbit. Only the legs though. He's never gutted a rabbit and after googling some instructions he's decided it's too difficult and traumatic lol. He thinks he can manage taking the legs off, so that's better than nothing. I'm excited!

Turmeric hasn't helped Spencer's lumps at all. Existing ones have gotten bigger and new ones have appeared

I bought a balance board from Kmart today for $10. The top is hard plastic so I've taped a towel over the top for now, but I'm planning on getting a piece of foam mat to cover the top for grip. Spence likes it. I used it to do the head up/down/left/right exercise with his front feet on it. Also got him to pivot around on it. Tassie - Spence wears a 55cm coat. Do you think he'd be able to stand square on the Fitbone? I thought it was big enough for medium sized dogs to stand on..

Check out the muscles on Nova! That's my dream dog right there The puppies are adorable, but the adults are just so handsome